Santa Monica is a beautiful beachfront city: breezes from the Pacific Ocean, a year-round Mediterranean climate, 3.5 miles of beaches. Seven million visitors a year flock here—generating $1.63 billion.

But the workers who maintain the city are hired on an as-needed basis, earning poverty-level wages, lacking benefits and the ability to form a union.

I am one of them. I’ve been employed as a temporary employee in beach bathroom maintenance for four years. I struggle to earn a living and hold an extra job so I can earn enough money to survive.

For the last year-and-a-half, the IWW in Windsor has been working on a campaign to organize panhandlers and buskers in the downtown core of this border city. The campaign started out as the Windsor Street Solidarity Committee and in late 2014 has expanded to form the Windsor Panhandlers and Buskers Union.

In late November 2014 I had the pleasure of sitting down with Fellow Worker (FW) Richard from the Windsor General Membership Branch (GMB) and one of the main organizers in the Windsor Panhandler and Buskers Union. He explained how the campaign started: “At first we really just did what were basically patrols with branch members around downtown.” At this point they called themselves the “Street Solidarity Committee.”

In support of the South African farmer workers and their supporting union, the Commercial, Stevedoring, Agricultural and Allied Workers Union (CSAAWU) the IWW International Solidarity Commission (ISC) issued the following statement:

After the rebellion of South African farmworkers who stood up and fought for their rights and working conditions in 2012/13, the CSAAWU defended dismissed and victimized workers and took cases to the Labour Court where farmworkers were heard the first time since 1994.

Two cases were lost and the CSAAWU has been issued with cost orders in excess of R 600,000 ($ 53,500) for supporting the farmworkers struggle.

The charge is unacceptable but not surprising. This case shows again in which favors Labour courts act and make decisions. The voice of the working class has never been welcome in any legal or administrative office in a system based on exploitation and violence.